Wear resistance also depends on the type of wear test. Some tests favor larger carbide sizes rather than smaller. Conventional wisdom with knives, however, is that smaller is better. Some carbides, particularly vanadium and niobium, are harder than aluminum oxide, the typical abrasive for Japanese synthetic waterstones. The chromium carbide in typical stainless steels like AEB-L should be softer than the aluminum oxide but some still report difficulty in sharpening, particularly at the high grits. We know that AEB-L can reach an edge radius even finer than most carbon steels from the research by Verhoeven, so the difficulty they are experiencing can't be blamed on the steel's functional limit, at least with AEB-L. VG-10, 154cm, and even PM stainless steels like CPM-154 and s30v are a different story. However, it appears that with some high grit stones the greater abrasion resistance of even the chromium carbides in stainless steels mean some have had a hard time polishing even AEB-L. A typical stainless steel like VG-10 has a much greater carbide size and volume, meaning magnitudes greater abrasion resistance and therefore lower sharpenability.